Blockbuster to charge for Total Access program?

It would probably be enough to get me to cancel and go back to Netflix. Having tried both, I am sure you noticed how much better Netfix suggestion Engine is. It actually suggested movies I really liked based on the ones I rated.

With Blockbuster, I say I really liked Mission Impossible. It comes back and says, since you liked Mission Imposible, you will shurely like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. I just don't get how they make the connections.

I bought a Video Projector and it came with $300 in Blockbuster rentals, so I could shurley go Netflix and not loose anything for a while.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Danny @ Apr 19 2007, 09:23 PM) [snapback]426545[/snapback]</div>

Getting in a lather over $2 a month seems misplaced ire to me. That's 7 cents a day - I give away more than that every day into those keep-a-penny-take-a-penny bins next to every cash register these days. I'd be more concerned about losing benefits or features of membership, and it sounds like features and flexibility would be increased, not decreased, even if it costs an extra 7 cents a day to get them. I applaud the mail-only option - cuts down on running internal combustion engines for half an hour at a time just to swap a couple of disks.

Mark Baird
Alameda CA

 

The idea of increasing the cost of their total access program is fine by me (after all, it is an added value over competitors like Netflix), the way they're thinking of implementing it is ridiculous. The additional cost of being able to return movies to the store is practically nil. I don't see why they have to release it as being more expensive than a mail-only option. It only makes people feel cheated.

Instead, they should raise the rates a little bit now, and 3-6 months from now announce a lower cost mail-only option. That way, they could say the rate hike was due to the success of the total access program (or something like that), and then later say that they're offering the cheaper option by popular demand.

 

I just started Netflix, and I'm curious to hear from those of you who have done both Netflix and BB, what's the substantial difference? Aside from in-store game rentals, is it just in being able to return a movie and pick up a new one in-store?

Danny sort of answered that already with "video games," and although I'm a game junkie, I don't even own a game console, so that doesn't really come into play for me. I think my lovely wife would kill me if I bought a console because I'd be playing all the time... Then again, when we have kids, they'll DEFINITELY need a game console... yeah... for them.

I'm also curious about BlockBuster on another subject. They've been notorious for carrying family-ified versions of movies (presumably studios provide tamer (lamer) versions of some films at BB's request) and I wonder if they still do that. I don't see why they'd stop doing it, as they want to attract "family" business, and although I understand their reasoning, I find it distasteful.

Maybe if the game rental thing becomes an issue for me some day I'll start asking Netflix for game rentals!

As for the original question, I think especially given the short time they've offered the current program, it's a bad idea for them to change the pricing structure. Give people at least a year of consistent service, otherwise they start to feel unstable and will switch to Netflix. A single rate hike in a short time will make people wonder if that will become a trend. That's what I would think, and I would immediately cancel my subscription.

 

I use NetFlix. It works for me, so I've never even considered switching to BB.

But their in-store return-and-rent option is nearly worthless for me because there are so few movies in the stores that I want to watch. It's only from a catalog of essentially every movie available on DVD that I can find even a few movies that I want to watch.

 

I'm another loyal Netflix user. They have a larger catalog, none of the movies are family-fied, and generally I get a new movie two days after I send back one. We'll use blockbuster for the occasional "must-have-it" this instant rental, but otherwise I don't like them much.

 

BB charged me for a movie I returned to their drop box but was lost in their system.BB basically didnt care they were at fault and extorted me because they could.I am p'd off.
Whereas Netflix posts on their website that they dont hold the customer responsible for something lost in the mail.
But if prices were equal, the BB setup is a better value.You could potentially rent many more videos by not having to wait for to and from mail delivery.
But eventually BB would try to screw you.I think they miss all those late fees they used to be able to charge.

 

blockbuster's corporate policy is to screw people over. i worked for them for 3.5 years, then i still had the lapse in judgment that led me to buy into their online service for a month. we got the month-long free trial, and when i went in to cancel it, it said it had billed my card that morning. they refused to cancel it, which is about what we were told about the in-store pass deals when i worked there. i was not surprised. so what did i do? i canceled a week ahead of time because i was going to be busy. now when i worked there, that just meant you finish out the month you paid for, and it doesn't renew itself again. but no, they just stopped sending me movies. nevermind that i had been waiting for one to show up for a week before that. so i got 2 weeks service for a month's cost and they refused to do anything about it.

there are reasons i hate blockbuster. with a passion.

 

Netflix has worked fine for us, so I don't see any reason to change. Being able to return videos at a store is not an issue, since we don't have Blockbuster in our county. I can't see driving 60 miles round trip for a video, even with a Prius, so I'll just keep letting the post office do it for us.

Tom

 

I've had both. Started with NetFlix, went to BlockBuster cause they were cheaper, discovered they were slower, went back to NetFlix, and then discovered there were still times when we didn't have what we wanted to watch and would still rent a few movies from BlockBuster at $4.50 a pop, so once we heard about the Total Access thing we went back to BlockBuster. I like the flexibility of their Total Access and would pay the extra $2 for it.

On a side note, I was taking to the owner of our local BlockBuster and was told that when you return a mailed movie to the store and use it to get a free rental from the store, the store doesn't get money or credit for it. I asked him how he makes money off of customers like me who always use the return mail envelope from a movie to rent an in-store movie. He says he doesn't make any money from it, unless they buy candy or other snacks they have. So he has special deals for Total Access customers, such as $0.99 2-liter bottles of soda, or discounts on candy. Unfortunately for him, I don't tend to buy those things either. I bought the 2-liter of coke the day I talked to him about it, but that bottle is still sitting unopened in my refrigerator 6 weeks later.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Danny @ Apr 20 2007, 01:44 PM) [snapback]426968[/snapback]</div>

Based on the above posts, it seems unlikely. Sounds like the company is trying to take business asway from the franchise owners.

FWIW, I get unplayable DVDs more often from the brick-and-mortar stores than from NetFlix.

 

I'm surprised one of the survey question's answers wasn't, "who has time to watch $20/month worth of movies, I can't even find time to clean my desk ! ! ! ! "
(unless I cut back on my PC time) :lol:

 

actually its $17.95 for 3 movies at netflix. i had blockbuster for a while and they were slower on movie returns and their selection is not as good. i opted out of them before the exchange at the store was offered so dont know about that although it does sound like a good deal to me. the ability to keep it as long as you want is very very cool especially for games and to be honest with ya, i dont think that 19.99 is outrageous and kinda hard to complain about rising prices especially when i get gas....

 

We were Netflix customers for quite a while, until I canceled when I noticed that our monthly usage was below 5 movies a month.

Then my wife subscribed to BB. This typically happens in the summer, or around extended school vacations when the kids are in the house and looking for entertainment.

They take advantage of the free store rentals, and not infrequently pay overdue fines. For the first time (?ever), I went with them to a store yesterday and picked out a movie, that has to be returned in *24 hours*. Perhaps some people view this as a sought after perk, but I don't. I can also confirm that late fees have been charged when movies were placed in the return bin on time, rather than handed directly to the store clerk.

So personally, I'll pick the service that offers the best mail-order for the lowest price. $15/month for 3 at a time strikes me as a very reasonable charge, that I would not go out of my way to undercut unless service/inventory was poor.

 

I've never much cared for Blockbuster; I've heard some pretty negative things about their business practices in the past (see, e.g., galaxee's post further up).

I've had Netflix for several months now and quite like them. One of the things that Netflix is doing these days that I think is awesome is allowing you to stream movies to your computer. Basically, you get as many hours of streaming per month as you pay in dollars (i.e. I'm on the $18/month plan, so I get 18 hours a month of streaming movies). They have a somewhat limited selection of streaming movies (at least compared to their DVD library), but they have quite a nice selection.

This service isn't 100% rolled out yet, but they seem to be giving it to people if you know how to ask for it. Basically, log in to your Netflix account, go to the "Help" section and click on the links about viewing movies instantly on your PC. When I did that, the feature was enabled on my account.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Danny @ Apr 20 2007, 04:44 PM) [snapback]426968[/snapback]</div>

The store owner I talked to claimed that the reason NetFlix was faster by mail than BlockBuster is because NetFlix has an exclusive contract with the Postal Service where the envelopes are scanned at the Post Office, allowing NetFlix to immediately send out the next one, while BlockBuster's movies have to make it all the way back to the BlockBuster warehouse before they know about it. Returning it to the store allows BlockBuster to scan it there and send out the next one immediately, thereby equaling NetFlix's time.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Marlin @ Apr 21 2007, 03:45 PM) [snapback]427452[/snapback]</div>

that might be partially true, but netflix also positioned their distribution centers near postal distribution sites. take us for example. our main postal processing site is in tacoma, WA where mail is processed for delivery in Western WA. so a letter sent by me in Olympia to say Rochester (a town about 15 miles southwest of here), will be olympia to tacoma (a town 20 miles northeast of here), processed and sent back. so in locating the netflix distribution center in the same city as the postal distribution area helps reduce mail lag.

now, i do know that netflix does do several things to insure that you are not able to watch more than a certain number of movies a month by either delaying processing of your movie (they only process orders mon-fri and they tell you when movie is received and if you have not exceeded your quota, they send out the next movie the same day. if you have, it is delayed by a day and in some cases, your movie will be sent out from a distribution center on the other side of the country from you. i have received movies from white plains, ny, nashville, tn, etc.)

for any of you that doubt my statement, netflix has already admitted this in a class action suit against them and we enjoyed upgraded allowance for 6 months and eventually a price reduction. (22.95 to the current 17.95)